Protesters greet House Speaker Paul Ryan, Sen. Walden during OR event

He also addressed President Donald Trump's comment that a government shutdown may be preferable if funding for a new border wall with Mexico isn't secured. GOP leaders don't have a plan yet for how they'll proceed but one likely scenario is to package the two measures together to get them to the president's desk.

"I'm upset about this administration, I'm upset about healthcare reform or their supposed reform that actually doesn't really amount to much for most of us", protester Katrina Dimick said.

Ryan does disagree with the Trump White House on one aspect of tax reform - mortgage deductions.

While speaking to Washington Examiner in an interview at Intel's Hillsboro, Ryan said, "I have not seen the kind of coalescing around tax reform from the business community like I have seen today". "We made a promise, we ran on this, we said this is necessary, this is what we're gonna do".

"I'm not going to get into differences on that, only to say that we recognize, acknowledge and believe you need to maintain the mortgage interest deduction, whether it can be improved in how it works - that's the discussion we'll have in an ongoing basis", Ryan said. The problem for the GOP senators is that if there is a government shutdown, they will be blamed.

He brushed aside questions about dissonance with President Trump, who earlier in the day had chided Mr. Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for not getting a debt increase done as part of a veterans' benefits bill last month. The S&P 500 index fell.35% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell.4%.

The Speaker said, "I've been focused on this literally my adult life".

Conservatives in the Republican Study Committee and House Freedom Caucus are pushing for deep cuts to entitlement tied to the debt ceiling which moderates in the party are not prepared to vote in favor of.

If the two are attached, Trump's veto threat becomes more significant, risking a partial shutdown October 1 and a debt payments default shortly thereafter.